We need a valley where GPs want to live: they training here, but few root careers here.

To quote James Bond, “Age is no guarantee of experience”… “and youth is no guarantee of innovation”, which for me sums up the health care professionals we have throughout the Cynon Valley.

The latest report from Public Health Wales shows that our health board – Cwm Taf has had an increase in younger doctors coming to the area to complete their training, which is brilliant. We need people who want to work in the South Wales Valleys and provide great health care. However, I fear that this isn’t the case at all. The BBC article, along with Health Secretary Vaughan Gething, have spun the story to show that this increase is the best thing for our communities. What it doesn’t show is the high turnover that sits alongside these figures and the doctors that move away from our area once qualified.

I know it’s the same in quite a few areas throughout the UK. Rather than celebrating that there are only a few experienced GPs within our communities, we need to encourage doctors and other NHS staff that train here, to remain in our valley. To become a true part of our community.

After all, we live in a beautiful part of the world with lots of amazing benefits. Countryside that is open to being explored by foot or on a bicycle; we are the queen of the valley’s surrounded by a rich landscape and an open gateway to the Brecon Beacons. We’re a stone's throw of two cities and many coastal towns, which for me at least makes the Cynon Valley the place where I want to live and where I want my children to grow up.

By supporting young professionals in building careers in South Wales we will inevitably increase our health and wellbeing. Through building relationships with our doctors making them core to our communities once more.